With election primaries drawing nearer, campaigns around the country are getting hotter by the day. Don’t believe it? Just take a look at some of the claims being made.

And that’s just what we are devoting much of today’s PolitiFact Oregon Roundup to – a quick election primer on who is saying what in a variety of races.

In Texas, Democratic U.S. Senate aspirant David Alameel cited troop levels that made PolitiFact wonder. His claim: “It’s long past time to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home. It has been more than 12 years and more than 40,000 troops are still stationed in Afghanistan with no clear objective.”

“This claim may have been close in spirit, but it aired outdated information,” PolitiFact found. “We rate this claim, which overstates both the troops there now and the possible number of troops by year’s end, as Half True.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska’s recent claim that he is “as independent as Alaska,” elicited challenges from Republicans in the field. “Instead of standing up to President Obama’s reckless economic policies, Mark Begich has supported them 97 percent of the time,” wrote one such candidate, former state Attorney General Dan Sullivan.

PolitiFact’s story found that Sullivan’s claim hinged on only one statistic in a way that didn’t accurately reflect Begich’s voting record on economic policy. Sullivan’s claim was rated Mostly False.

Overall, the story found, Bevin’s add goes back to 1991 to “cherry-pick votes and make it seem like McConnell and Reid were on the same side.” The claim is not only wrong, the piece concluded, but ridiculous, “and we rate it Pants on Fire.”

Today’s final two claims aren’t campaign-related, but pack enough interest to make our final cut.

In a floor debate in Virginia, state Sen. Mark Obenshain disputed contentions that raising the minimum wage would ease the plight for many poor families. “There are 4.7 percent of Virginians who are minimum wage earners who are over 25 years of age working full-time and trying to raise a family,” the Republican from Harrisonburg said.

In truth, the story found, no data are kept on the class of people to which Obenshain referred. Still, further scrutiny indicated that the percentage of Virginia workers supporting their families on minimum wage might be even lower than what Obenshain mistakenly said. “So Obenshain stumbled into a credible conclusion,” according to the piece. “We rate his statement Mostly True.”

In Rhode Island, state Sen. Leonidas Raptakis, a Democrat, is pressing for a bill in the current General Assembly that would make inmates who are serving a life sentence for first-degree murder wait 30 years before being eligible for parole, instead of the current 20.